by Jenn Bishop
I stare at my toes with their bare nails and dip them just below the surface of the water.
When I finally look up, John Gallagher is headed straight toward us in his effort to find Polo. We pull our legs out of the water and clutch them to our chests.
“Maaarcooo?” he yells. His hand bangs the edge of the pool. “Ow! What the heck?” He turns around, eyes still closed, and swims away from us.
“You want to go get a snack?” Kiersten asks.
I look toward the snack table. All I can see is the back of Gabriella’s head, but I know nothing has changed. Kiersten can say whatever she wants to make me feel better, but the truth is, we’re not at my house or hers. We’re at the pool, where Gabriella is in her super cute bathing suit talking to Avery.
“Not really.”
—
I bend down to pick up a paper plate under the folding table, part of post-party cleanup duty. Do any of my classmates know how to use a trash can? I pile up the plate with stray napkins and head for the least overflowing trash can.
“I’m not sure if this is sausage or a poop.” Kiersten points to a brown chunk under one of the lounge chairs.
I remember what Dad said about boys peeing in the pool on purpose. They wouldn’t…No. Ew, ew, ew. They’d better not. “Use a paper towel. Just in case.”
Kiersten walks back to the pool house. Gabriella is sitting at one of the tables, texting someone. Avery?
“Come on, Gabby. We need to clean up. My mom’ll be here soon,” I say.
“In a sec,” she says, still looking at her phone.
I stand there, waiting for her. “Gabby…”
She sighs and plunks her phone down on the table. She grabs the container of cleaning wipes and heads over to the table furthest away, like she wants nothing to do with me. What reason does she have to be upset? I’m the one who’s having pretty much the worst day ever, not Gabby.
She scrubs hard at the table, as if it’s actually possible to get the rec center’s tables clean.
“What?” I ask her.
She stops scrubbing and turns her head up at me. “What did I do now, Maddie? Huh? What is it this time? It seems like no matter what I do, you don’t like me, so I don’t know why I bother trying.”
Kiersten comes back out from the pool house with a sponge in her hand.
“What are you talking about?” I say.
“You’re mad at me because I danced with Avery. You’re mad at me because Kiersten came with me to Rhode Island. You’re mad at me because I kissed Avery that day at Gregg’s—”
I gasp. I can’t help it. She kissed him. That night when Avery came home and…
I look at Kiersten. For the shock that’s supposed to spread across her face. But it’s not there.
Kiersten’s eyes get real wide and it almost looks like she’s going to cry.
“You knew.” My voice cracks as I say it.
“It’s not fair, Maddie.” Gabby’s starting up again, and this time there are tears in her eyes. But I don’t get why. She has everything. Everything I wanted. Everything that used to be mine. “You can’t dibs someone. Avery’s a person. He can choose for himself. But maybe you don’t get that, that people besides you have feelings. People like Gregg.”
Kiersten’s still standing there with that sponge in her hand. Like she’s stuck. Between her former best friend and her future one.
What if you’re the only one he told?
That’s what she said to me, even though she knew all along. Avery never wanted to go with me to the carnival. Not just me. He probably meant to go as a group. With Gabriella. Always, always with Gabriella.
I think of the only thing I’ve got. The one thing I know that nobody else does. Even if it’s not a hundred percent true yet. “Yeah, well, maybe it doesn’t matter anymore about Avery.”
“What do you mean?” Gabby asks.
“He didn’t tell you?” The knobby feeling in my stomach grows as I get ready to say it. “He’s moving.”
Gabriella’s eyes widen. She didn’t count on that. So what if Avery kissed her? So what if he did and it was magical? So freaking what. Maybe it all doesn’t matter anyway.
Because Avery is leaving.
That’s what he told me.
Me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mom’s ugly green rental car pull into the parking lot, and I thank God I have a mom who is always fifteen minutes early for everything. I march past my former best friend into the pool house to get my bag and then right back out into that too-bright sun and through the gate to the car. I don’t even say goodbye.
Cammie is strapped into his booster seat behind Mom. I open the back door and slide in next to him.
“You girls are finished pretty early,” Mom says as I buckle myself in. “How was the party?”
I stare at a scratch on my knee. “Fine.”
“Okay.” Mom has to know that “fine” is never a good answer. But at least she doesn’t ask any more questions. She switches the radio to NPR, which is playing some weird story about people knitting sweaters for penguins.
“Can we tell her yet?” Cammie asks Mom.
“Tell me what?”
Cammie reaches into the pocket on the back of Mom’s seat and pulls something out.
“Mom saw it on the side of the road.”
Hank’s collar.
The bell on Hank’s collar jingles as I take it from my brother’s sweaty hand.
“I didn’t want to tell you like this,” Mom says.
I flip over the dog tag. On the back of the little metal heart is printed: HANK EVANS, Dad’s cell phone number, and our address, 14 Hollow Road. The only thing that hasn’t changed.
“The sun was reflecting off it,” Mom says. “It caught my eye as I was driving up the hill by the Lewises’ old place. I pulled over and…”
I clench my fist around the tag. The bell leaves an imprint on my palm.
“I’m so sorry, honey.”
The reporter on the radio is done with the penguin story. She’s talking about the stock market now and I wish Mom would turn it off, turn it all off.
“Maddie?”
I can’t turn to look at Cammie. I can’t let him see me cry. It’s the one thing I’ve tried so hard not to do in front of him, no matter what. So I turn my head toward the window. Stare out at the million green leaves on the trees as we speed by. In this part of town, the trees stand tall and full of life. Not like the marching skeletons that survived the tornado in my neighborhood. Gangly and dead-looking, but somehow still standing, still haunting us. Reminding us of everything we lost.
I prefer the trees that lay down and gave up. Let the tornado take them.
Up ahead is a big field, a gap in the trees, and when we pass it, I can see the sky again. All those big, puffy clouds. I try to make out a dog in them, but it’s useless.
They’re just clouds.
—
When we get back to the McLarens’ house, I’m out of the car before anyone else.
“Maddie?” Mom fiddles with the seat belt stuck in Cammie’s booster seat. “Honey, we need to talk about this.”
I rush ahead of her. “Not now.” When I open the front door, Avery is sitting on the living room couch with his headphones on, typing away on his laptop. He doesn’t hear me come in. Doesn’t even look up from the screen.
Good. Fine.
I carry my flip-flops as I walk barefoot up the stairs to my room. No. Not my room. Never my room.
There’s no place here that’s mine. Any minute, Cammie can walk right in and there’s nothing I can do to stop him. It’s his room, too.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, but when I check to see who’s calling, it’s a number I don’t recognize. Of course it’s a wrong number. Who’s going to call me? Not Kiersten or Gabriella. Not even Gregg would want to call me. Not after what he heard me say.
That’s when it hits me. How Gregg must’ve felt, overhearing what I said in the bathroom. How would I feel i
f I heard Avery say the same thing about me?
Awful. The worst.
Oh my God. It hits me again. Slams me in the stomach. Am I Avery’s Gregg?
I fling my phone across the room.
It lands on the navy-blue beanbag chair Mom bought for Cammie when he complained that all the chairs here were uncomfortable.
I grab one of the pillows from the bed, press my mouth to it, and scream. The pillow drowns out the sound. My tears make splotches that turn the pale pink flowers on the pillowcase a bright red.
There’s a knock at the door.
I lift my mouth off the pillow. “In a minute, Cammie.”
“It’s not Cammie,” Avery says.
“I’m busy.”
“Maddie, come on.”
“No!” I’m sure he can hear the tears in my voice. “Please. Leave me alone.”
I hear his footsteps as he walks away from the door, along the hall, and down the stairs. I plant my face back on the pillow and listen to Cammie, outside playing catch with Dad, and the McLarens’ next-door neighbors’ dogs barking. The buzz of lawn mowers and weed cutters in the distance. Birds tweeting in the tree outside the window.
But in the bedroom, all I hear is the ticking of the little alarm clock on my nightstand, the one Grammy bought for me and Cammie for trips. Cammie grabbed it when they went down to the basement. Thought they might be down there awhile and need to know the time. This is the longest trip we’ve taken it on. Just down the street.
I fold myself up, my shins against the bed, head tucked into my knees. They made us do this at camp on yoga day. Child’s pose. I stretch my arms out, tuck them under the pillows, and close my eyes.
He came in here. I didn’t imagine it, right? Avery came in here in the middle of the night while outside it thundered and lightninged, like it was never going to stop. He sat right here, right on this bed. He said all the right things, to Cammie, to me.
Why?
Why was he so nice to me, if he was thinking about kissing Gabriella?
I stay in child’s pose for the longest time. Minutes? Hours? I can’t tell. The yoga teacher was right. It feels good to be all curled up like this. Tucked in. Like I’m zooming back through time to when I was a baby, safe inside my mom.
Okay, maybe not that far back. That’s a little gross.
Still, there’s something about being all curled up that makes me feel the tiniest bit better. Even if it fixes nothing. Even if I’m not ready to open my door and let anyone in. Even if I’m not ready to go outside into the rest of the house, where there’s no way to avoid Avery and no bringing Hank back.
If I stay right here, tucked into this little ball, nothing can hurt me.
Maybe that’s what Hank did when the storm came. Dogs can sense things, right? He knew the storm was coming. That’s why I couldn’t find him when it was time for his supper. He was trying to outrun the storm.
But he couldn’t run fast enough.
He ran and ran and ran and ran. And then the tornado must have been right there. Right over him.
Did he curl into a ball, too?
Did he tuck himself up real good and remember back to when he was a puppy? To when his mama protected him? Do dogs even think like that? Do they have memories that go that far back?
But if he was curled up all tight in a ball, how did his tag come off?
Was it when he was running? Maybe it got snagged on a branch and he kept running because he knew the tornado was coming.
That must be what happened.
I hear a little trill followed by a thump on the bed next to me. A paw presses against my outstretched arm.
Stupid cat.
That’s what I think at first, but then he starts purring, like there’s a motor running deep inside him. Mom said that cats only purr when they’re really happy, when they feel at peace.
I untuck my head and open my eyes. And there is Louie, Peg’s littlest cat, a calico, not much bigger than a kitten. Louie wouldn’t have stood a chance outside in the storm. He rubs his head against my leg and looks up at me with wide green eyes and huge black pupils.
He wants me to pet him. He must.
But it feels wrong to pet him, to like him, to scratch behind his ears. That’s what Hank loved. Those were the things I did for Hank.
Louie head-butts me again. Stares at me, practically begging me to reach out and touch him. Come on, he’s thinking. What’s stopping you? Come on and pet me already. I’m so cute. How can you resist me?
Even though only Louie is here to listen, I close my eyes and whisper, “I’ll always love you, Hank. You’re my favorite.” And when I open my eyes, I scratch Louie right behind the ear. Just how Hank loved it. He purrs even louder and leans into my scratching.
There’s another knock on the door.
“Dinner’s almost ready, and Mom wants to know if you’re gonna come eat with us.”
“I’ll be down soon,” I tell Cammie, not taking my hand off Louie.
It only lasts five days. My period, that is.
Mom says I’m lucky and that I shouldn’t get used to it. But I’m not counting the period days. Not really. I’m counting the days of Kiersten not texting or calling me. Of Avery barely saying a word to me except “Can you pass the butter?” or “Can you turn the volume down?” Of Gabriella not writing back to my Can we talk? email.
I brush my teeth in the downstairs bathroom with Cammie on Thursday night. I tell him it’s because the upstairs bathroom is so crowded all the time, but really, it’s because downstairs we won’t run into Avery.
“Hey, Maddie?” Cammie’s mouth brims with foamy toothpaste.
I spit into the sink. “Yeah?”
“Do you think Hank turned into a ghost?”
I swish some water around in my mouth and spit again. “You only turn into a ghost when you have unfinished business. Like stuff you meant to do before you died.” Before this summer, I would’ve said I didn’t believe in ghosts, but after playing with the Ouija board, I’m not so sure.
“Like saying goodbye to us?” Cammie rinses his toothbrush. “Maybe his ghost is still looking for us.”
I turn off the bathroom light before we head back into the hallway.
“I don’t think Hank’s ghost is somewhere out there, wandering around.”
“But what if he is? How do you know for sure?”
I tuck Cammie’s tag into the back of his pajamas as we walk up the stairs. “If you’re really worried about his ghost, we could do something special for Hank to let him know that we’ll always love him.”
“Like how we did that thing for Grandma?”
“The memorial? Exactly.”
“Let’s wait till the morning to ask Daddy. I bet he’ll say yes after coffee.”
Right before I go to bed, I grab my cell phone off the charger and pull up the latest text thread with Kiersten. The day after the pool party, she and her brother flew down to Florida to spend a week with her dad. I know her phone still works because she’s been posting pictures pretty nonstop, just like usual. But as I scroll up, all I see are the dozens of messages I’ve sent her. The ones she hasn’t replied to.
And it’s like I’m Gregg all over again. Spamming her.
I get the message. I know what it means when she doesn’t reply.
I rest my phone on the nightstand and check with Cammie, who’s flipping through a Ninjago comic. “You ready to go to sleep?”
He tosses his comic to the floor, and I click off the light.
—
I drop another shovelful of dirt on the ground next to the small hole we dug for Hank’s collar. “You want to do the last one?”
Cammie takes the shovel from me and digs out one more tiny clump of dirt. Most of it falls back into the hole.
It’s been a week since Mom spotted Hank’s collar on the side of the road. Mom and Dad stand behind the hole in the ground, squinting in the late-morning sun. Mom holds a small bouquet of flowers clipped from Peg’s garden.
We chose a spot next to the dogwood tree in our front yard as the gravesite for Hank’s collar. It’s one of the few trees the tornado spared, probably because it’s still so tiny.
Hank’s collar jingles as I place it in the small hole in the ground. I wonder if Cammie is thinking the same thing I am: that this is the last time we’ll hear that jingle. Cammie is wearing sunglasses, so I can’t see his eyes, but he’s not a big crier, not anymore. He’s grown up a lot this summer.
I push the dirt back over the hole, covering the collar, and pat it down with my palms. There’s dirt underneath my fingernails, but I leave it there.
Mom places the flowers gently on top of the mound of dirt. She kisses her hand and presses it to the flowers. One last kiss for Hank. Even though she always talked about how dirty he was from being outside so much, she kissed his head all the time.
She reaches out her hands, one for me, one for Cammie. Dad grabs my other hand as we stand in a circle around Hank’s grave.
“Maddie?” Dad asks. “Is there anything you want to say?”
I haven’t planned anything for this moment, but still, I have to say something. Staring down at the flowers, I think back to the beginning. “I remember that day Mom and Dad brought you home, Hank. You were just a puppy and you were so excited about everything. You were so stoked about treats and you needed to sniff everything in the house and the yard. And you were so tiny. I didn’t know how big you’d grow up to be. But you didn’t change as you got older. Not really. You still needed to sniff everything and you still got so unbelievably excited about your treats.” I laugh. I look up at Mom and she’s laughing a little, too, even though there are tears in her eyes.
“You were a great dog, Hank. The best.”
Dad squeezes my hand.
“Cammie?” Mom asks.
Cammie shakes his head.
“You were the best dog I could have asked for,” Mom says. “A true wild beast, sharing our home and our hearts.”
“He wasn’t that wild,” Dad says.
“Clearly, you’ve forgotten that time he managed to eat an entire towel,” Mom says.
“Hank ate a towel?” Cammie shakes his head, like there’s no way this could be true.